Left in the Dark
by cuppedcake
Summary: No one knows much about the life of Aurora Sinistra, but a look at a variety of her memories might reveal more than anyone would've guessed about her and those she grew up with.  Includes looks into the lives of the marauders, Lily, and Severus Snape.
1. Chapter 1

**This is the first time I have posted something on for at least six years, so please bear with me while I get out all of my writing kinks and figure out how best to do this. Reviews are greatly appreciated and will be considered carefully, thank you for reading.**

October 15th, 2020.

"What seems to be the problem, Mr. Potter?" A light as air voice traveled across the stone tower and settled in around the boy. He was in his fourth year at Hogwarts and at fourteen stood almost as tall as the grown woman that was questioning him. This was the sixth night in a row that Aurora Sinistra had heard footsteps in her area of the castle and finally she had seen fit to be roused from her sleep and find the reason for the late night intrusions. Silently, she had climbed the staircase, trying not to startle whoever it was that felt the need to gaze at her stars that evening. Judging from the look on the boys face he had not at all expected to be met by anyone, let alone one of his Professors, but instead of reprimanding him, she merely passed where he stood and leaned against the edge of what seemed to young Albus to be the top of the world. Despite his talent for Quidditch the height still left him with a slight case of vertigo. His superior, however, did not seem phased.

"Nothing, Professor, I just wanted to get some air," His voice echoed that of his father, and his grandfather before him, and Aurora smiled to herself before looking his direction. He was clinging to what looked like a rather well cared for tapestry, and she noted the look of horror on his face as she studied it, "I'll be going now," he stuttered quickly, and headed for the exit, but she cut him off.

"There is nothing wrong with needing to see the sky more clearly, Albus. Especially when you've seemed so preoccupied lately?" There was a hint of intrusion in her voice and the boy knew instantly that she had read right through him. It was true that the middle child of the infamous Potter boy had been feeling out of place. He had been sorted into Gryffindor three years before, to the surprise of no one, and had excelled in the areas of popularity, academics and sportsmanship, but while everyone else seemed pleased with him he had come to find that he wasn't quite sure where to go from where he was. He was awkward, ungainly, and reminded Aurora very much of a boy she had once known when she was young. Aurora turned and several strands of dark grey hair fell from the bun she had attempted to cage them into. Albus thought suddenly that she looked rather like a ghost. Sadness, no...loneliness, was written on her face.

Despite that, it struck him that something had always been a little more comforting about her than any of the other teachers. They seemed to have been somehow scarred by the war, but Aurora Sinistra seemed to have been softened by it. The boy momentarily considered telling her everything. He had spent night after night up reading about Albus Dumbledore, and he could understand perfectly why the man was revered. Thanks to books by Rita Skeeter and others he had had a window into his world, his family, his achievements and his downfalls. His father had brought him up to believe in the man that gave him his first name. But something he had been told when he was young still haunted him.

"_Albus Severus, you were named after two headmasters. One of them was in Slytherin, and he was probably the bravest man I ever met."_

No one wanted to talk about the war anymore. Harry Potter had tried to help his children understand when they had questions, but even he seemed plagued by memories. All Albus Severus knew for sure was that the world he was born into was a safe one, a good one, and he had been told all of his life that Severus Snape was one very large reason for that safety and that goodness. No one would tell him why. Yes, he knew that Severus had loved his grandmother so much that he vowed to protect her son, and yes, he knew that he was a spy during the war, but what did that mean? Hadn't he also killed Albus Dumbledore? Hadn't he watched countless people die and done nothing to end it? Noble intentions or not, it was not something that a fourteen year old mind could easily comprehend.

This woman standing before him, however, knew more than she had bothered to tell anyone, Albus was sure of it. No one paid attention to Hogwarts' longest standing Astronomy professor. She was quiet, reclusive, helpful but never personal with her students. The little information he had found on his namesake, however, seemed to point to her. If anyone knew anything about the late Potions master it was her, and she had not seen fit to tell the world.

"He was your friend, wasn't he Professor Sinistra? Snape?" It seemed to both of them as though his words were a ripple in the air, and he could almost see them strike her. The way her relaxed gate shivered slightly in the wind, and the way she reached up to brush curls from her eyes. His name affected her, though he would never understand it. It was something that simultaneously connected and separated them. Aurora Sinistra was the name he found to be the only one mentioned in the will of her colleague. She was the only one approached by anyone (and hounded by Skeeter) when it came to books about his life, but not one existed. It seemed that even though it had been more than twenty years since he had passed she was protecting him, though what from or why, Albus could not say, "He left you everything he owned," Her blue eyes flickered to him, surprised that he knew that information, "You must've been close."

"He was my best friend," Aurora admitted, nodding slightly. It was obvious there was more in her, sitting at the tip of her tongue and begging to be told, but she wouldn't say. She couldn't bring herself to talk about it. To her, it would have been like giving him away to someone else. If she could only keep his story..._their_ story inside of her, maybe he would never be gone. Not really, "...and he was a great man," she murmured, "maybe someday you will know more of him, Mr. Potter, and you will understand, but now is not the time."

Suddenly the boy felt the deep need to apologise, but almost as soon as he opened his mouth she interrupted him, "I don't blame you for wanting to know, you deserve to, but for tonight you should rest. Your house has late Astronomy classes tomorrow."

"Yes Professor," Albus nodded convincingly and tucked his cloak under his arm, "Thank you for not being upset with me." The woman shook her head and smiled softly ,turning her back to him and her gaze to the heavens. He stood there for a few more seconds, watching her curiously, and then slipped the cloak over his shoulders and vanished into the darkness.

Aurora, for her part, had kept herself intact throughout their conversation, but once the boy was gone it seemed the night sky might have easily swallowed her whole. She drew her arms around herself and squeezed gently, inhaling the thick night air and wondering why after all that time she couldn't let him go. You see, the story of Severus Snape was just as much the story of Aurora Sinistra, but the bookish girl and private woman had been lost in the shadows of history, and now only she really knew just how much their lives had been intertwined. She closed her eyes and fought the burning tears that threatened to spill from behind them. A shaky hand touched the cool stone of the tower and somewhere in the great sky above her a star finally lost its shine.

"I miss you," she whispered, but it seemed that no one heard.


	2. Chapter 2

October 3rd, 1976.

"You really should stop picking fights with them you know."

The charcoal eyes of a sixteen year old Severus Snape flashed outward from beneath a layer of thick black hair and found themselves met with an equally intense pair of ice blue ones, "I wasn't picking a fight with them, they were picking one with _me_," the teenager lifted his hand and rubbed the back of it against his cheek, causing the smudge of dirt that was there to blend with the blood caked on his knuckles. Aurora quickly reached out and grabbed his wrist before he could further mess his complexion, and held it against his knee with her right hand while her left dabbed at several cuts and bruises on his face. It was the third time in a month that James and Sirius had got a hold of him, but from the way her friend had been acting all morning she knew that the altercation wasn't entirely their faults, "I didn't even do anything to them, were they bleeding at all? No."

Sighing, the brunette sat back on her heels and tilted her head to the side to get a better look at him, "You never do anything to them. You never do anything to anyone, Severus, but what was it that you _said_?" Ever since Severus and Lily had stopped speaking the previous year the tension between him and her new best friend, James Potter, had increased tenfold. Aurora had already been responsible for healing a broken nose, several jammed fingers and the countless gashes he had been on the receiving end of, and it didn't seem likely to stop any time soon. That fight, after the fifth year students had finished their OWL's had marked a turning point for the class of 1978. The Gryffindor students had never had it in for a Slytherin as much as they seemed to have it in for Severus, and Aurora's refusal to stop giving him the time of day (despite urgent requests from Remus Lupin and several Ravenclaw students) left her labeled as an outcast as well. What should have been a school rivalry between boys had now drug two unwilling females into the situation, and while Lily and Aurora would have rather stayed out of it entirely, neither was willing to stop supporting their own side, and each other.

If it were up to Aurora, however, Severus would never know that she was still speaking to Lily. It would have been far too hard on him.

After several moments and no reply from her companion, the girl gave another small sigh and went back to healing him. It was mid-afternoon on a Sunday and a large group of students had vacated the grounds and headed to the Quidditch Pitch to watch a friendly game between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, but it seemed two seats would be left empty this time. Aurora had never been particularly social, but even she noted how many people seemed more reluctant to talk to her than usual. She paid it no mind, however, and simply remembered that her sister used to tell her that those that weren't with her when she needed it most were those that she could do to live without. The words echoed through her mind as she turned her attention to the splintered skin lining Severus' knuckles and murmured a few spells to hasten their healing.

"I cannot believe you've run out of salve already," her eyes never left her work but it was as though she were looking straight at Severus anyway. He watched her intently, knowing that she was the only person in the world he would ever let close enough to heal him. They were sitting beside the lake under the shade tree he so often visited. She had taken off her robes to reveal a navy dress with a ruffle around the collar. Alabaster skin was framed with deep brown curls, her lips painted a deep maroon. How was it that she managed to be the sort of pale people referred to as doll-like, and no one ever thought him anything other than sickly? His brow furrowed, and at her mention of salve he jerked his hand away, "Really, Severus. Please. Stop fighting with them, for my sake?"

He stared silently at the ground next to him. She stared at the look on his face, "What's wrong, anyway? What happened that set you off?"

"According to them I was born this way."

Exasperated, Aurora stood and rubbed her forehead gently, squeezing her eyes shut, "I hate it when you're like this."

"Join the club."

"Will you _stop_? I'm on your side, Severus!" He looked at her then and noted the glimmer in those blue eyes. Intensity didn't often show on her face but when it did her emotions were glaringly obvious. He picked up a stone and tossed it into the nearby water, glad for the loud plunking sound it made when it hit the surface. When the young man looked back to his friend he found she had turned her back on him and he knew he had gone too far.

Unbeknownst to him she was fighting the urge to scream and cry and kick the tree and all other manner of immature things. There was a lot that she could handle, but her past had left her unstable and not well suited for confrontational situations. She crossed her arms in front of her, bracing herself against the wind that found its way off of the lake, and tried to imagine someone hugging her.

"They called you a name."

His voice had gone soft and darkened, and it took her a second to register that it was she he was talking to. Confused, she frowned, and turned to face him once more. He was looking straight at her and she wondered if she had seen him that serious in a long time, "They have before," she replied.

"This one was different. Wrote it all over the boys bathroom walls. Carved it into the sink. I know it was them, it was their writing."

Wind whipped the hem of her skirt, making it billow slightly as her eyes met his. For all of the times she had defended Severus Snape she could not remember an instance in which he had rushed to her defense. It was always him sticking up for himself, and her sticking up for the both of them. Then again, she had never really been threatened. Deep down she knew that no boy in the school would do her any harm, it was Severus they were after, and it had worked beautifully. His one remaining friend was one of his few remaining weaknesses, and that was the last thing she had ever wanted to be.


	3. Chapter 3

September 12th, 1971

There was a boy across the room doing something curious to another person's shoes, and it seemed to Aurora as though he knew what he was doing was wrong. The Slytherin common rooms were cooler than the rest of the castle, even in September, and the eleven year old girl had seen fit to excuse herself early from dinner in the Great Hall and retreat to a place by the fire in the dungeons. She had curled into a ball in a great arm chair, buried herself in blankets and stuck her nose into her copy of _'Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them'_. Dragon lore was being catalogued in her mind when there was a slight shuffling noise from across the room, and the girl poked her head up to see what was amiss. That was when she saw him; a boy her own age, kneeling by shoes and struggling to get something into them. He had shoes on his own two feet, she realized, she it wasn't as though he could've been tampering with his own. Briefly she attempted to remember his name. He had been sorted with her, of that much she was certain, but since then she had seen nor heard little from him. Most of her other housemates, male and female, were slightly boastful. From proud families like her own, they often thought themselves better than others. Aurora had stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the girls of her house, but this boy had managed to blend into the background.

He grunted once, and her eyes widened. He must not have known she was there, she decided, or else he wouldn't be misbehaving as he was. Before she could stop herself, she reprimanded him, "Whatever you're doing isn't very nice, is it?" Her words made the both of them jump, the boy spun around, wide-eyed and angry looking. He was clutching a wriggling fish in his hand. "That's _gross_," Aurora set her book to the side and tilted her head, a look of disgust written on her face, "Why are you doing that?"

"S'none of your business!" He shouted back, surprised by the force with which he said it to her. He found it odd that she seemed almost hurt, so he did the only thing he could think of, "Who the bloody hell are you anyway?" Aggression never hurt, he thought, especially in getting annoying girls to go away. It occurred to him, though, that this girl hadn't treated him the other Slytherin girls had. In fact he didn't think she'd ever said two words to him before, unlike that Carrow girl that kept telling him if she broke his nose it would look better on his face.

"You shouldn't talk like that to a girl," Aurora returned, her brow creasing, "I'm Aurora Sinistra." In one great sweep of a movement she threw off her blanket and strode across the room, putting out all of the confidence she had in her, and extending her hand to him. Even at eleven he was half a head taller than she was. Nervously, the boy wiped a slimy, fish covered hand on his pants and took hers.

"Snape. Severus Snape."

"Whose shoes are those, Severus?" He studied her carefully as she peered around him at the boys shoes on the floor, apparently done being so accusatory for the moment.

"Evan Rosier's," his voice was quiet now, as though he had just been caught by a teacher.

"What did he do to you?"

"Pushed me in a mud puddle and called me a greasy git."

"Well your hair is a little greasy isn't it?"

"No!" Severus' eyes grew wide and he stepped away from the girl, hanging onto the near dead fish for dear life, "I wash it all the time, for your information! It just always turns out this way!"

Aurora simply shrugged, "Then I guess that's not your fault and he shouldn't tease you about it."

"Right."

For a few minutes the pair just stood there and looked at one another. The young girl wrapped her arms around to her back and clutched one wrist in her other hand. Silence filled the room, but it wasn't uncomfortable. Not for either of them.

Oddly, it was Aurora finding herself willing to break the silence. There was something about this boy that seemed different than anyone else she had ever met. For the first time since the death of her sister, she felt herself willing to connect to another person. To this boy with greasy hair and a fish in his hands, "We should find some water for that fish. You can study with me after, if you like?"

Severus was stunned. No one had ever offered to help him with much of anything before, and no one had ever offered to study with him. For a moment he suspected she might be playing him, but then he nodded, "Yeah, okay."

Neither of them could have known what had just begun, but somehow they both knew that for at least some small part of them, things would be different. From then on.


End file.
